Sherry Malouf’s third-grade class had a bake sale for Food2Kids. They raised more than $540.

Sherry Malouf’s third-grade class had a bake sale for Food2Kids. They raised more than $540.

Trinity students celebrate year of philanthropy with red-carpet event

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While math, science, history, reading and writing are all valuable fundamentals in early education, what if students were given the opportunity to learn what it is like to think outside of themselves, to understand the value of philanthropy? What kind of world might we see if every child grew up instilled with the desire to lend their neighbor a hand?

This year, Trinity School attempted just that, as all of the students in the lower and intermediate schools were encouraged to come up with projects in which they could give back. By class in the lower school and advisory group in the intermediate school, students worked together to come up with and follow through on ideas that they saw as addressing some need in the community.

“We’ve always had a great commitment to service of all kinds at Trinity School, but we were looking for a way to do two things -- to be more intentional about it and to organize our efforts around something that young children could understand,” said Patricia Maurer, head of lower school at Trinity. “We asked (the students) how they might solve, if not an entire problem, part of a problem and the idea just proliferated from there.

“Each class and each advisory came up with individual projects, and because they were smaller projects they help put the children more in touch with the client and that’s what we wanted. We wanted children to really experience what it was to serve somebody else,” Maurer said.

The school will host a “red-carpet event” Tuesday to recognize the work the lower and intermediate school students put into their projects, said event chair Liz McWilliams.

“We’re going to actually have a red carpet for the kids to walk on so that they know that their work was worthy of stars,” McWilliams said. “They are going to walk down the red carpet, have their pictures taken and we’re going to have a slideshow -- We’re calling it a movie premier -- of all of what they’ve done in the year put to pictures.”

Maurer said she hopes that by seeing the projects of fellow students, new ideas may begin to form for next year.

“When kids have a chance to sit down and look at everybody else’s big ideas from this year, that may spark an idea for them to do next year,” Maurer said. “One of the things that we will learn over time as adults working with young children is that they get more excited about an idea if we’re willing to release that idea back to them -- if it’s really their idea.”

The students worked with several local nonprofit agencies on projects such as:

-- collecting and donating teddy bears to children at Rays of Hope;

-- putting together “bedtime bags” -- complete with a book, blanket, stuffed animal, toothbrush and tooth paste -- for children placed with foster families at Buckner Children and Family services;

-- meeting on Saturdays to pick up trash with Keep Midland Beautiful; and

-- providing food at the weekly service at Church Under the Bridge Midland.

Dan Marchione, head of intermediate school at Trinity, said that the project that impacted him most was the one between a fourth-grade advisory group and Allison Cancer Center.

“They called their group the Hope Squad,” Marchione said. “They made blankets for the chemo patients and then they went over there and actually delivered them. The kids were just touched and spent an hour and a half just hanging out in the chemo ward talking to these people who were going through chemotherapy. The whole experience was just remarkable to them because they were able to reach out and have this kind of life-changing moment interacting with these people who, before they showed up, were complete strangers.”

Marchione said that the real value of the project has been that it enables the students to believe in the ideas that they have and understand that they have the ability to make a difference.

“My hope going forward with this is that by having these experiences these kids will really be empowered to follow their hearts and make a lasting impact here in Midland or wherever they go with their lives,” Marchione said.

While the service project was initially inspired by Chris Rosati, a North Carolina ALS patient who founded Big Ideas for the Greater Good (BIGG), and his campaign to “encourage students to do good in their community,” Maurer said that she also found inspiration from someone a little closer to home.

“Libby Campbell (executive director of the West Texas Food Bank) really inspired me to get to working at this and to encourage teachers to develop those connections with community leaders because she believes -- and I agree with her -- that nonprofit organizations that serve others need people who are committed to the idea of philanthropy,” Maurer said. “We are such a wealthy and privileged community in so many ways, but underneath that privilege, there is an enormous amount of need. Our children need to understand where the need is.”

Although she is appreciative of the attention and thank you’s that the school and its students have recieved, Maurer stressed that they are not celebrating themselves.

“The year-end celebration is not of ourselves, but of the idea of service,” Maurer said. “We didn’t do it to be thanked.”